LITMIR.BIZ

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right, so he eased up to the left shoulder. This time, an ambulance zipped up and rounded the corner. In less than three minutes, three more squad cars, an additional ambulance and two fire trucks raced by.

      “Must be big,” he murmured.

      “I’m afraid so,” Carlie answered, her voice softer and more serious than he’d heard it yet. She really wasn’t that bad.

      “I’m sorry.”

      She made a startled sound. “What for?”

      “I acted like a jerk back there. I didn’t need to slam the door on you.”

      “Thanks for the apology, but I’m not totally innocent either. I tend to have a smart mouth, and I gave you a pretty hard time. I know you’re trying to do your job, and I understand you want to keep me alive, but I’m not used to all these restrictions. Besides, if the Lord wants me home at His side, then I’m ready to go.”

      A chill went through Dan. “Don’t be so ready to croak, okay? You’re very young. You’ve a long life ahead of you. By the way, how old are you? I mean, I have all that information in your case file, but I don’t remember everything that’s in it.”

      “I prefer to keep that piece of data private.” A touch of humor came back into her voice.

      “Not for long. When I get back to my place tonight, you’ll be busted.”

      “I’ll take what scrap of privacy I can get these days.”

      With an air of comfortable companionship between them, they turned the corner three blocks away from Carlie’s apartment complex. As they approached, a nasty feeling took root in Dan’s gut.

      A hideous orange glow tinted the blue sky, and clouds of smoke spread and hovered on the light wind. Right over the complex.

      Dan slowed the car. At his side, Carlie caught her breath. His pulse pounded through him, throbbed in his temple.

      Every one of his internal alarms detonated.

      Which is what seemed to have happened to the structure, a detonation of some sort. All the emergency vehicles that had passed them no more than ten minutes earlier were lined along the backside of Carlie’s apartment building. A HAZMAT team had joined the party, too.

      That nasty feeling morphed into a ravening certainty. Still, he had to know. “You stay here,” he said. “And I mean it, Carlie. Don’t move.”

      She nodded, her eyes glued to the scene. Firefighters in their yellow suits ran around the trucks, some climbed the giant ladders, others helped people to the ambulances. Uniformed cops talked to a throng of civilians.

      Dan approached an officer. “What happened?”

      The woman turned to him and shrugged. “We’re not sure. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

      A burly man in a white muscle undershirt and tan shorts walked up. “You wanna know what happened? I know what happened.”

      Officer Shenise Davis turned keen hazel eyes on the guy. “So tell me what happened, already.”

      “Easy there.” The guy’s bearded jaw pushed out. “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled up, you know?” He shook his shaggy head. “Kids! Anyway, there’s this blond broad who lives across from me, and either her gas line went nuts or something else did. All’s I know is the place went kaboom! The whole building shook like one of them California earthquakes. Smoke started to stink up my place, and I opened the door. Well, the babe don’t have much to go back home for—if she wasn’t home, know what I mean?”

      Dan knew. Too well.

      The walking, talking wealth of information ran a massive paw through the wild thatch on his head. “Either the explosion busted her place to pieces, or else the fire ate it all up.”

      Although sure he already knew, Dan asked, “What floor was this?”

      “Tenth, over in the middle section.” He pointed an arm heavy with dark hair. “See? The ladder’s up to the window to the right of the babe’s place. Mrs. Schulz is seventy-five. Sure, she’s got more vinegar to her than I got hair, but she can’t go running or nothing like climb down on her own. I figure they’re gonna have to carry her down….”

      Dan gave what he hoped the officer and the verbose bear read as a nonchalant shrug, then walked back the excruciating distance between him and Carlie. He got in the car, turned the key, then shot her a sideways look.

      “We’re outta here. Your friends and family came calling, and they left you a calling card. Of the exploding kind.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Don’t ask me where we’re going, because I don’t know. I have to call in, report this, check out what’s available and then get you there. We can’t stay here anymore. Someone bombed your apartment.”

      And then she threw Dan for a loop—again.

      Carlie chuckled. “And you gave me grief about my nails. Just be glad I wasn’t here. Face it, Danny Boy…er…Dan. I’d better get a manicure more often. It’s good for my health. My nails—you know, the ones you said were going to get me killed—just saved my life.”

      TWO

      Yes, she should be scared.

      And yes, she was in serious danger.

      But what could she do for herself? Nothing. So Carlie blocked out Dan’s griping and turned to the Lord.

      Father, I’m not so good at this yet, but I don’t want to die. Don’t get me wrong. If You want me, I’m there. But if it’s not urgent, then I’d like to hang around here a little longer. The deal is, I don’t know what to do, how to avoid Dad’s and Tony’s slimy friends. And Dan? Well, he tries, but there’s a lot more of them than of us. So help us out here. Okay?

      “You! Did you go deaf or something?”

      Carlie shook herself. “No. I just had to…” He didn’t share her new faith, but with this latest development…He’d asked. “I had to pray.”

      “Okay.” He looked way uncomfortable. “Well. That’s fine. Ah…we’re going to have to pull over long enough for me to make some calls, get an idea what we should do next.”

      “Fine. What do you want from me?”

      “Ah…nothing. I just figured you’d want to know why I was stopping when we need to get away ASAP.”

      Carlie peered at her companion, but couldn’t read him, and she really did try. “Oh-kay, Mr. Secret Agent Man. I’ll be right here, seat belt on, ready for takeoff whenever you’re ready.”

      He gave her another of his exasperated looks. She had come to identify and catalog 37 flavors of weird looks Dan Maddox used on her—she would’ve preferred the ice cream. Pulling over to the side of the road wasn’t the smartest thing to do. And yeah, yeah, she’d figured Dan as the Boy Scout–type right from the start. He’d never cell phone and drive. But the New Jersey Turnpike was no lonely country lane. Anyone could come along here and pop the two of them with the greatest of ease.

      Ever since she’d helped Maryanne Wellborn, now Prophet, save her elderly father from dear brother Tony’s murderous intents, Carlie’s world had turned into a surreal series of images, each one weirder than the last. All because she’d agreed to testify against her father, her brother Tony and a bunch of their mob pals.

      She’d also acquired her intense, good-looking blond shadow.

      Carlie had never been so squeezed into a box. She’d called her father a tyrannical spoilsport during her high-school years. Then, after she married, Carlo gave her complete freedom—as long as she stayed out of his business.

      That business, the same as her father’s and brother’s, was what landed her smack in the middle of this mess.

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